Photohunt: Wild

The photohunt theme today is wild. Out of control wildfires in forests close to developments can cause loss of life and property, as we all know. But fire is also a positive force in nature. The nature conservancy has a good article about Maintaining Fire's Natural role.
Part of the coastal plains and sandhill habitat gardens at the NC Botanical garden are burned annually. If you are interested there is a discussion of the importance of fire in the ecosystem this habitat garden represents. The shot above show a section of that habitat garden which is wild.
The Art Park at the NC Museum of art also has wild sections representing the habitat of the various ecosystems in my state. The shot above is in the Prairie habitat section and there is a discussion in the Art Park link above of what was lost once fires started being suppressed. The NCSU Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources is working with the museum to restore the field, shown above, to be as much like the Piedmont Prairie once was as possible.The shot above is also at the museum's art park and leads you from the prairie section to the Forest bottomland. It's interesting to be walking in a fairly wild area and then you encounter some of the art. For that matter some of the art is a little wild. The Cloud Chamber for Trees and Sky has a small hole in the roof which projects the sky onto the floor of the chamber. The wild part is the roof as you can see below.
I also have a parallel wild shot at Snap2Days .

I hope everyone has a great weekend. The home of the hunt is here - PhotoHunt and Saturday is the official day of the hunt. You can also browse early birds at technorati here - photohunt.